The new W32/Nopir-B virus is a worm with a mission: to search and destroy MP3 files on its victims’ hard drives. Ouch. While it seems to be aimed at trying to target music pirates who populate their music collection with pirated MP3s through peer-to-peer networks, the worm can’t tell the difference between pirated MP3s and legitimate MP3s (such as those purchased through iTunes, for example).

Explains security company Sophos’ Graham Cluley, “The Nopir-B worm targets people it believes may be involved in piracy, but fails to discriminate between the true criminals and those who may have legally obtained MP3 files. Whichever side of the fence you come down on in regards to internet piracy, there’s no debate about the criminal nature of this worm.”

That it is aimed at music pirates is not in doubt, as when the worm-carried program is run it displays an image on the infected computer with an anti-piracy message. It then deletes all MP3 files it finds, along with files with a “.com” extension. Of course the key here is…

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